Core5 Industrial Partners and Arbok Partners have acquired a site in South Jersey where they plan to build a 1.75 million-square-foot warehouse, which would be one of the largest in the Garden State, as developers continue to see a demand for logistics space.

Core5, based in Atlanta, and Arbok, headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, have closed on the purchase of a 156-acre site, a farm, at 1087 Route 40 in Carneys Point, New Jersey, according to CoStar data. That's where the developers plan to construct the first building of what is planned to be a complex of five distribution facilities totaling nearly 4 million square feet.

The project will be the first one for Core5 in New Jersey, Doug Armbruster, a senior vice president and managing director at the real estate firm, told CoStar News on Friday.

Carneys Point, which is near both Delaware and Philadelphia in the southwestern part of New Jersey, has become a hub for industrial development. E-commerce giant Amazon, for example, has a 1.25 million-square-foot fulfillment center not far from the Core5-Arbok property. The area is a good location for distribution centers because it's not only near Philadelphia but it's just few hours away from both New York and Washington, D.C., with the airport and seaport in Newark, New Jersey, just 100 miles away on the New Jersey Turnpike, according to Armbruster. Carneys Point is also on the Interstate 95 corridor, he said.

New Jersey remains a favorite site for industrial development even though demand for such space has slowed down a bit in the wake of the pandemic. The Garden State benefits from its location in a highly populated region near major transit hubs. Because the northern part of the state is highly developed, real estate firms have been going farther south to find open land to build.

"Sites are fewer and fewer between," Armbruster said.

In some cases that's caused friction — and court battles — with residents who complain of alleged "warehouse sprawl," while development proponents argue that the fast-growing logistics industry shouldn't be throttled.

The first building planned for the Core5 Kelly Logistics Park at Carneys Point, at 1.75 million square feet, would be one of the biggest individual industrial buildings in New Jersey. It's probably the largest in terms of "pure-play warehouse," without manufacturing, according to Mateusz Wnek, associate director of market analytics for CoStar Group, said in an email. It all depends on how one defines industrial.

A Bristol Myers Squibb site at 1 Squibb Drive in New Brunswick is 1.8 million square feet. While that property is technically industrial, it is also a manufacturing site for pharmaceuticals, Wnek said.

An industrial property at 1 Passaic St. in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, is 2.3 million square feet, but it also does manufacturing, according to Wnek.

Then there are three industrial properties that rank right behind Core5's first building in size, each at 1.5 million square feet, according to CoStar data. They are 107 Trumbull St., Elizabeth; 629 Grove St., Jersey City; and 995 Taylors Lane, Cinnaminson.

Kelly Logistics Park would ultimately have 3.8 million square feet across five buildings, according to a marketing brochure. Those properties will range from 371,000 to the 1.75 million square feet.

The main large building will have 285 loading docks, four drive-in doors, parking for 516 trailer trucks and 1,450 cars. Company officials are still working through a timetable for development of the project, Armbruster said.

KBC Advisors is handling leasing for the building, according to Armbruster. It is being developed on a speculative basis, with no tenant lined up yet.

Ryan Curran of Curran Commercial was the listing broker for the warehouse site.